Goal Progress - End Of November 2014

At the end of each month, I post an update of my goals, including a brief discussion of any notable events that might have occurred during the month. The latest month's figures can always be found under the Featured menu in the menu bar at the top of the blog.

Last updated: End of November, 2014
Current value: $9,652
Change from last month: +464
Percent of Goal:  8.88%

Note that the funds in this account are invested in stock, so there will be fluctuations in value that are outside my control. I never withdraw money from this account, so any dips are purely due to stock price changes.

Events Of Note Last Month: The upward trend continued in November. Besides my regularly budgeted contributions, I added just $88 from sales of my online courses. That's one of the lowest monthly totals I've had. Udemy pays two months in arrears because they offer students a 30 day money back guarantee, so this payment represents weak sales in September. But I'm looking forward to January's payment, which will be for sales made in November. Udemy offered instructors a chance to participate in their Black Friday sale. This sale was actually a two week long sale that started two weeks before Black Friday. Prices for participating courses started at just $10 and increased by $1 per day until Black Friday. I was hesitant to join the sale. The normal prices for my courses range from $99 to $69. I only get between 25% and 50% of the sales price (depending on how the student found the course), so dropping the price to $10 seemed like I could be losing quite a bit of money. As it turned out, opting into the sale was one of the best decisions I've made. As I write this, there are still a few hours left in the sale and the number of students enrolled my courses has already more than doubled and my income for the month has shattered my previous monthly record! There is also the potential for more future profit because later on, I can cross-promote my other courses to those students who only picked up one or two of my courses during the sale.

I received another small royalty payment from my ebook - just $8 or so. It's small change, but I love the fact that I continue to be paid each month for work I did once in the past.

At the end of the month, the amount of cash I had in the account was over my threshold to buy stock, so I picked up another 10 shares of Realty Income. I'm approaching another milestone there, which I'll talk about once I reach it.


Some of you may have noticed I've added some advertising to this site - just one ad in the upper corner. I don't expect to earn much. I have a total of three blogs and I run Google ads on all of them, but very sparingly. I think I earn about $100 per year, which is just enough to cover the hosting costs. Still, it's another revenue stream.